Videogames & Loneliness: The Legend of Zelda

Monomyth Dualist Triforce Tetrad

 

*** I’LL SEE MYSELF OUT ***

In step with the wanderers,
You, cardiac boy, heart cleft
In twain – you trace the land-bridge,
You walk into the waterfall
Looking to old moonlight
For new earths –

This was called young
This was called then
The dream procedures softly sung
Are echoing again

 

 

*** LOST WOODS ***

These trees that seem rooted
In the sallow air are
Evenly spaced, but there is
A depthless depth here —
A small plot set
At intervals, a dead grove
To pass through endlessly
Every tree is the last tree
Passing again, and when
Comes the season of
Their decay, they will all
Shrivel and glitch in unison,
This sprawling orchard
Of cardinal dementia
In dire rhythms bound —
That holds in its heart
A smaller grove,
The blight, the blade,
The burial ground.

 

 

*** MEETING THE LADY ***

At the end of your
Long road, you will find
An open hand
And a hilt and handle
And you would do well
To pause at this
Stone, this anvil, and
Say the name that’s
In your ear —
Speak it deep
Into this long
Forgotten keep,
Your path has left you
Here alone, a
Supplicant, the
Gate, the steel,
The stone, and
In your ear
A bladesong sorting
Lee from ward, and
Fore from rear
And when their gut
Gives up the key
And suffers
You to stand,
Please don’t forget
The other names
Unspoken
And that
Other open
Hand.

 

*** LATE AND LONG EXPECTED ***

So here I am at last, I promise,
A shadowless chiaroscuro volta,
Collapsing before you, the abyss
You’ve been waiting for.

This is called now
This is called known
To tell the empty-handed one
It’s dangerous
to go alone

Soon, I will take
The cracked outside path
Soon, I will sink
Into a sideyard, or park
Under an overpass to be
Passed over.
Time has the
Memory of a tambourine, the
Durability of foam. We all
Arrive at nowhere, and find
Nowhere feels like home.

 

Jesse Miksic is a designer, critic and content creator living in Brooklyn, New York. Jesse maintains a cinema and media theory website here.

Images: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Nintendo, 2006.

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